Week 9 Story: A Monkey's Reckoning

(Phayre's Leaf Monkey by Tareq Aziz Touhid)

 

There was once a great mountain. One side was always bathed in warm sunlight, and the other was covered in a cool shade. It was in this soothing shade that a Crab lived. She was happy to live where she did, and a had a home in the ground that was the tidiest one around.

One day, she was leaving her home and found a pile of rice by her door. Delighted she looked around to see if it was anyone else's and then started to store the rice away in her home. She wasn't the only one with her eyes on the rice though, above her, in the trees, Monkey had just caught glimpse of the rice, his favorite food! He picked a seed from his pocket and leapt down and greeted Crab. 

"Hello, would you be willing to trade for some of your rice?" he said.

Crab thought about it for a moment and responded, "Yes, let me see what you have."

"I can trade you this fruit seed for half of your rice."

Crab initially wanted to reject the offer, surely one seed wasn't worth half of her entire stack of rice, but something inside her told her that maybe it would be worth it later on. 

"Ok I'll accept your trade."

The monkey looked a bit surprised, but hurriedly gave her the seed and scooped up his portion of rice and scurried off before she had a chance to change her mind. He felt quite smug about trading a paltry seed for a great amount of rice. He then decided that he would go over to the sunny side of the mountain and live there for a while. 

After a few years, Monkey returned to the shaded side of the mountain and saw a new tree filled with fruits! He leapt through the branches and made his way towards the bounty. He then noticed something, this tree was planted right next to the home of Crab. He landed on the ground and peered into the hole.

"Hello! Is anyone home?" he called out.

"Yes! How can I help you monkey?" asked Crab. He explained to her that he had seen the fruits on the tree and wanted to know if he could have some. She, of course, allowed him to take a handful.

"Just make sure to throw some down for me, I can't climb up there like you, so it would be a big help."

He nodded and bounded up the tree, but then started to stuff as many fruits as he could into his mouth and almost plucked the entire tree bare. Seeing this, Crab was extremely saddened, she had worked hard to care for the tree so that it could bare so many fruits. Some fell and she hurriedly stored them away, but when Monkey saw this he grew angry. He jumped down and was about to beat Crab for daring to take his spoils. As raised his fists, a great many wasps shot from Crab's home and swarmed Monkey. They stung at him and he ran away screaming in agony. He swore as he ran to the other side of the mountain saying that he would never set foot in this accursed place again. As he ran he dropped the fruit and Crab was able to collect and store it away.

Author's Note: This story is based on The Crab and the Monkey by Andrew Lang. The first half of the story is mostly unchanged plot wise. I focused on re-telling the story in my own words and with dialogue I liked. The second half of the story is more changed. In the original the monkey starts taking the fruit, and the crab tells him to do a somersault because she doesn't think he can because he ate so much. He does the somersault to prove her wrong, but ends up dropping the fruits. She then takes the fruits and the monkey gets angry and actually beats her to a pulp. Her friends then find her and devise a plan to teach the monkey a lesson. The friends are a wasp, mortar, and an egg. The egg breaks into the monkey eyes, then the wasp stings its nose, and finally he trips and hits his head on the mortar and is killed. I decided to just have a nest of wasps rush out of the hole to save the crab.

Bibliography: The Crab and The Monkey by Andrew Lang